Cora Proctor was born on Thursday, March 4, 1909, in the Larrabee District of Machiasport. According to her birth certificate, her parents had eleven girls and Cora was child number nine. Last Saturday a celebration of her life was held at the Larrabee Baptist Church and Cora Proctor Quimby returned home to Larrabee at the age of 109.

In an area with as much history as Down East Maine, it isn’t uncommon to find remnants of past eras – although the quality of the contents wildly varies. Brian Smith of Baileyville recently found a piece of local history at auction that contains accounts of ill-fated voyages of vessels traveling through the area.

“No day failed to contain the unexpected,” says it all about this book. Sometimes situations in real life never really resolve themselves; they just keep on going with no end in sight. Or the unexpected happens and another situation intercedes and takes over without the first one seeing closure. Much can be said of life and it is reflected beautifully in a new book by Ann Beattie.

The Maine Press Association [MPA] has recognized two Washington County publications — the Calais Advertiser and the Machias Valley News Observer — for their exceptional journalism work between April 1st, 2017 and March 31st, 2018. The awards ceremony was held in Sunday River on October 20th.

The Machias Valley News Observer received four awards. The paper’s cartoonist Bob Bryson took home second place in the Editorial Cartoonist category. One judge lauded Bryson saying, “These cartoons are simple, but pack a big punch.”

Nearing the close of a year-long, often heated debate over hiking taxes to add deputies to the sheriff’s office, the county commissioners have sent a revised budget proposal back to the Washington County Budget Committee with a new suggested county tax increase of 3.9 percent or $243,000. Previously the cost increase for the first year was more than 6 percent, or roughly $400,000. The first year increase is the highest because it includes the cost of cars and other gear.

Sen. Angus King, in a decisive victory at the polls, will return to the U.S. Senate to serve a second six-year term. And he has ambitious plans.

“I want to let everyone in Washington County know how excited I am to have carried Washington County,” he said in an exclusive interview with the Machias Valley News Observer on Friday. “I’m humbled, and I’m anxious for us all to be working together. Much remains to be done.”

Overall crime in Maine is continuing to decrease, according to a report released by the Uniform Crime Reporting division of the Maine State Police that records crimes in various categories in both the urban and rural sectors of the state. Some crimes, however, have increased, with particularly sharp rises in rural areas – defined as areas without their own police departments.